Assessment Glossary

Assessment Processes of appraising or evaluating student work. Different types of assessment instruments include: achievement tests, competency tests, developmental screening tests, aptitude tests, performance tasks and authentic assessments

Authentic assessments The process of gathering evidence and documentation of a student's learning and growth in ways that resemble "real life" as closely as possible.

Criteria The dimensions or characteristics of standards used to judge students work

Criterion-referenced assessment Assessment that compares a student's performance according to a description of the desired performance. Designed to measure how thoroughly a student has learned a particular body of knowledge without regard to how well other students have learned it. (Often contrasted with norm-referenced assessment.)

Data Records and reports of formal and informal observations, experiences, and events. Data are facts or figures from which conclusions may be drawn.

Embedded Assessment Assessment that occurs during the course of instruction and is indistinguishable from instruction. A test at the end of a unit is not embedded. Maintaining a checklist that is recorded by the teacher at any time when the teacher witnesses the student reaching an expectation is embedded.

Evaluation The process of testing, appraising, and judging achievement, growth, product, and process or changes in these using formal or informal techniques.

Fluency Having efficient, accurate, and generalizable methods (algorithms) for computing that are based on well-understood properties and number relationships

Formative Assessment Ongoing assessment providing data to guide instruction and improve performance

Norm-referenced Assessment Assessments designed to compare the performance of an individual student or group to another student or group by distributing performance across a normal curve and in which not all students assessed can perform at the highest level.

Performance Assessment An established level of achievement, quality of performance or degree of proficiency on a standard.

Portfolio A purposeful, integrated collection of student work showing effort, progress or achievement in one or more areas.

Reliability The consistency of assessment results from an instrument over time or over a number of trials.

Rubric A scoring guide including a summary listing of the characteristics that distinguish high quality from low quality work.

Scoring guides. See Rubric.

Standards Statements that identify the essential knowledge and skills that should be taught and learned in school

Summative Assessment A snapshot of student performance at a given point in time, judged according to pre-established standards and criteria